With respect, neither our canine, nor our Colorado friend is responding to the question that was posed.

pointster wrote:

Why don't the Canadians build a refinery in Canada and ship the finished products South using existing pipelines? Is the cost of a transcontinental pipeline that much less than the cost of a refinery?

A new refinery in Canada near the source of the crude would be fiercely opposed by environmental groups in the same way that they have opposed new refinery builds in the US for decades. The US industry has responded to the difficulty obtaining permits for new refineries by upgrading existing facilities and by building many new refineries overseas.

As for those questioning the economics of the oil sands production and transportation by pipeline.........which is irrelevant to the regulatory approval of the pipeline........I'll leave it to others to judge whether the highly paid analysts in multiple major companies recommending billions in investment, are better placed to make that judgement than someone googling in their basement.

I, simply, responded that there are other reasons, besides objections from environmentalists, that no new refineries have been constructed since 1976. I do not know the cost of a new refinery; especially one that will handle the heavy Venez. or Can. crude oil. I do know that one of the major reasons that new refineries were not built, was due to over-capacity in the refining industry in the 80's and 90's. Back then I, actually, worked as a structural engineer, designing oil production facilities and modifications to "gasp" existing refineries.

You place the blame squarely on the regulatory environment. But, I believe the conversation is incomplete without mentioning that the economic factors of investing in a new refinery, during those days of unknown foreign crude oil supply sources, may be a larger reason for the delay in increasing domestic refining capacity. Additionally, foreign growth, particularily Asian, made investment in offshore refining more lucrative for investors.

I do not have your vast experience (although rarely shared on this forum except for the sound bites) in the petroleum industry. But, I do recognize the complexities of the oil marketplace.

Full disclosure...When the pipeline was proposed, I bought Valero stock. I felt that the volatility of the Venez. heavy crude supply was keeping the stock price down, and this was a buying opportunity. That said, I still believe in keeping a vigilant eye on the petroleum industry.

On top of all this, Obama has appointed an EPA chief who strongly supports his promises to shut down coal (the regs that will achieve that are already in place) and strongly constrain natural gas -- the latter of which some experts say we have a permanent (i.e., cheap) supply. Presuming he's intelligent, the only logical explanation is that he wants to drive their prices so high -- as he told Chu to do with gasoline -- that solar and wind power will become cheap and profitable by comparison. He's ruining your lives for ideology, as he stated in his ABC debate was OK by him, and you're masturbating about a pipeline to China?

Let's see ... at $12 a gallon (some experts with a solid track record predict at least $15), a couple of days on the river will cost me just about $500 in fuel. For my few remaining years, I can swing that.

Can the rest of you? And can you afford to buy groceries and board shorts transported by trucks paying those prices?

You younger guys are indeed farked, Keystone or not, and your kids and grandkids are doublefarked.

These coal regulations could save $90 Billion per year in health costs and save tens of thousands of lives. This by driving up electricity costs a maximum of 4% per year.

Conservatives, generally, pay lip service to "pay as you play" economics. How is it that this is tossed out the window when it comes to fossil energy suppliers paying for the damages caused by their products. Shouldn't these costs be included in the cost of the product? We all pay these costs anyway.

BTW, energy production in the intermountain is not suffering since Obama took office. 2010 was the third biggest year for natural gas well permits in Colorado. This, after the State tightened up environmental regulations.

Iso is, how unusual, full of it. Coal is suffering because fracking has produced a bounty of cheaper natural gas. But they will blame it on Obama and EPA--as they will the demise of the pipeline.

This talk of entitlements is pretty funny--that's what I did. I got permits for big projects that people like mrgybe had failed at. During my working life I also so lots of soft money projects--projects like the bullet train through San Diego. Lots of full employment for consultants--but then no hard money for construction. I do believe that the coal sands will be developed, in fits and starts. I will believe that the pipeline is a real project when I see bulldozers, not oil industry apologists, at work.

Some facts from someone who actually engineers refineries (and sulfur recovery plants, LNG plants, ammonia plants....hell, we're even heavily into wind and solar for that matter):
1. Permitting is a major obstacle in the US & Canada, but that's like saying that lack of tort reform is the reason why healthcare is so high: it not.
2. During the 70's, 80's, & 90's, the largest five oil companies set about to deliberately buy up, shut down, and dismantle as many if not all of the small independant production refineries that existed in most cities. This is just capitalism: buy out your competetor and force the market to come to you. It's not against the law or anything, it just shrewd business. Don't believe it? The Kansas City Star did an in depth reporting piece (series of three) about this a couple years ago, it was quite conclusive. Go look it up.
3. It's completely true that oil companies are not particularly interested in building new refineries; it's cheaper to upgrade and de-bottleneck (we just did one last year on a Conoco-Phillips plant in Houston), plus it keeps the price where they want it: not high, not too low.
4. It costs about 1-2 Billion $$$ to build a decent sized refinery.
5. Gasoline will never be $10/gallon, at that price, we would be gassifing coal and making synthetic gasoline, I believe the price point of synth-gasoline is about $7.50/gallon, and remember, we're the Saudi Arabia of coal. If we have to start down that road, it'll get even cheaper as we build up capacity. We'll never run out of gasoline, it will probably get more expensive though, just don't believe that panic that isobars is selling.
6. As for the Keystone pipeline; not sure if they'll build it or not, if they don't send it to Houston, then the Canadians will try and send it to China directly, which is worse for the whole planet._________________Kansas City

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